I'm pretty sure a lot of those spectral tigers, dragon kites and ethereal traders being sold for cheap by level 1 priests on every server are duped. I'm not sure if Blizzard will ever figure it out and maybe remove them, or if they'll just let them be and
perhaps claim that the sudden mass quantity is because of the last TCG set.

Other pets are probably safe enough, so you could spend RL money for the "common" rare pets (if you don't have them) or buy them in game.

To be honest you should post it in the Pet Trading section of the forums and see what fellow collectors have to offer for 100k, you might be surprised that someone will offer you a deal much better than that of AH and sellers spamming on trade on your server.

Regarding the duped mounts and pets, they have been around for almost a year (might be even longer than that), Blizzard has not yet done anything nor officially announce any plans to fix the issue.

Regardless of how cheap they are I try to do everything I can to avoid buying duped items (I know they're hard to avoid nowadays though). The Tuskarr Kites don't seem to be hit by duping as of yet so out of those three I would get a Tuskarr Kite I suppose. But in terms of what I think is coolest, Soul Trader all the way!

Milkywind wrote:Nightsaber Cub is pretty cheap, so might as well buy a loot card with real cash.

I noticed a very large price increase recently on the Nightsaber cubs. From 5 dollar to 15. Ok that mays still not be that expensive, but something is going on there. I wouldn't wait too long to get one.

Just going to give a little input when it comes to duped items. I used to work the auction house pretty heavily, if there was profit to be made there was a good chance I was involved in the market. This did include duped items, something which I am not proud of. Now, I was never involved in duping the items and never had any kind of ongoing deal with the, but in a lot of cases it was all too obvious.

There are two big items that stand out for me from cataclysm, Reins of the Crimson Deathcharger and epic gems. The former I made several hundred thousands on, just by buying in bulk from the dupers when I saw them advertise in trade and resell on AH. The second one was somewhat similar, only larger quantities and smaller profit (due to everyone getting in on the action). Quite frankly it was a horrible time to work some parts of the AH, because everywhere you turned there was duping and scamming going on (sands of time was duped and for a short while there was a Vial of Sands scam going around). What's important for you to take away from this though, is that nobody ever had anything taken away from them. You will not lose a pet that you bought from the AH, that's for certain. Ever. The chances of you losing it from what looks like a suspect seller is also extremely slim, especially if you're keeping it for yourself.

Finnelis wrote:Just curious, but how the hell would you know that an item is duped? Are there any tell tale signs or do you just base it on your own intuition and presumptions?

If there were tell tale signs, even Blizzard would be able to figure it out.

And how do you know an item is duped?
Kind of like how peeps knew when they were looking at a bot. You can't know for sure, but following the exact same path, doing the exact same actions, is a sure sign.

Apply a little bit of reason to arrive at your answer.

When you have lots and lots and lots of super rare items suddenly appear that are selling for low prices, there's an exploit of some kind going on, even if you don't know what the specifics of that exploit are. The assumption is duping, but it could be something as simple as producing fakes codes that the Blizzard site accepts.

We know that there have been duping bugs in the past, we know that there have been various exploits and other hacks in the past, we even know that there have been code generators going that caused peeps with legitimate cards to not be able to redeem them because someone already used the code.

My suggestion is that if you're going to buy one of these things, make them post it on the AH (and note the time you bought it) so there's a definite and clear record of your transaction just in case Blizzard ever does something about it. Any legitimate seller shouldn't have a problem, since they're pets it only costs 1 sp to post them, and they get their money anyway. If they object, let them mark it up the 5% to offset the AH cut.

Shagina wrote:What's important for you to take away from this though, is that nobody ever had anything taken away from them. You will not lose a pet that you bought from the AH, that's for certain. Ever. The chances of you losing it from what looks like a suspect seller is also extremely slim, especially if you're keeping it for yourself.

Exactly this. There's no functional difference between a 'legit' item and a 'duped' item; there's no serial numbers on pets or any way to distinguish. The only difference is how they came into being--once they've been created, they are identical in every way. Bliz could theoretically track transactions from suspected dupers to the 2ndary buyers, but they've never shown any willingness to do this or to punish 2ndary buyers, except in very egregious cases (ie people who bought 100s of duped epic gems the week after dragon soul came out).

Spectral Tiger Cub in particular has suffered from duping since at least early summer, but there are no reports of cubs being taken away. I've had mine since June, I'm 99% sure it's duped and he's totally fine, and I've never heard a peep from a GM or anything like that.

Based on previous dupe incidents I'd say the pets most commonly being duped won't go too much lower. I'd also count on Blizzard stopping the dupe at some point fairly soon, and despite what they say I'm sure they know it's going on, they just won't say anything at all until after it's been fixed. Unless you've been buying multiple rare pets cheaply in a trade with lvl 1 sellers with random names and limited English abilities I wouldn't worry about losing pets already purchased though. I remember when the Crimson Deathcharger was being duped, it was down to 30k towards the end. Now when I see it up on my home realm's AH it's around 160k. So don't expect prices to stay low on items we know are being duped. Blizz will shut it down and prices will go back up.

Some of the TCG pets I would expect them to start rising in prices again next year as the TCG boxes get bought out, opened and used. The new influx has lowered the prices, but as more and more get bought and put into collections I'd expect prices to start slowly going back up. On those you have some more time I'd say, it seems like there are sellers sitting on unopened boxes for selling in a few months at a higher price - same for players who have gotten cards but don't want to sell them quite yet at these prices.

If it were me, out of those three I'd go for either the Spectral Tiger Pup or the Soul Trader, especially the tiger if you can have a bit of money left over to then save up for the soul trader in a reasonable amount of time. I've noticed the Tuskkar kite supply and prices have been very stable, I would be surprised if it gained a great deal in rarity on AH or price at this point so it would in my opinion be a pet that's safe to leave buying later.

This is indeed true, anything bought through the AH has no consequences to the purchaser, regardless of how the items were obtained in the first place. So i took a risk and bought Spectral Tiger Cub 1st and so far he aint dissapear , i even posted ticket to double check legit of item , and lookin forward to buy next one now from AH since their price is droped down low as hell , even down to 25K buyout

Blizz would have a revolt on their hands if they ever were able to track/delete dupoed items. You cannot punish the unsuspecting buyer because of someone else's illegal move. In additon, the 'thing' being duped is a pet cage and once it gets learned the pet cage ceases to exist, therefore leaving no trace-able tag on the pet itself.

I most likely bought a ton of duped Sands of Time at hugely discounted prices to make and sell a dozen or more Vials that were sold and learned. I bought an auction off the AH in a 'legit' transaction and went on to use that item to make and create my own transaction. Same sort of thing; I don't see any way that can be digitally tracked to prove something I did or didn't use was duped.

Buying an item that 'may' be duped and you have no knowledge of the fact is not against the EULA, unlike buying gold from a 3rd party or the actual act of duping itself. I would not concern yourself with the transaction. No, no one wants to support duping, but in the end it isn't our job to police the dupers it is Blizz's.

Hah, I was reading this thinking "what's he talking about, he could probably get 3 or 4 of those pets for 100k" - then I noticed the thread has been necro'd from last year.

I have some items that may or may not be duped. I strongly suspect my Crimson Deathcharger is, although I didn't know that at the time. As far as I'm concerned, though, I worked hard to farm and raise the gold to buy those items, and I bought them in good faith. If Blizz decided to take them from me after all this time, I'd have to cancel my account. It's "only pixels" of course, but those pixels represent a pretty hefty investment of my time.

Milkywind wrote:Took a few months but finally made close to 100k Gold. Just wondering what are everyone's opinions of what I should pick up? I'm deciding between three:

Spectral Tiger Pup:
It has been pretty cheap these couples of months. I don't know if the price will stay this way or go down. Should I just get this now?

Soul trader:
Prices on Soul trader have dropped too, but not as much as the STP. Not sure if these prices will continue to drop or raise back.

Tuskkar Kite:
Prices seem to have remain the same. I wonder if it will drop because of that new TCG set that can contain any loot card from any of the previous sets.

=D at this rate you can get all 3 for under 100k.

Highly recommend you grab the CUB because for people out of the general pet information loop, it seems the most appealing just to have. I have had several people contact me on my server for a cub when I have one up. EST are so abundant, I've seen them for as low as 20k each....already have 3 now....

When I made my first 100k, I didn't want to spend it. I did "re-invest" and doubled it right away. Not sure if that's something you are interested in....But I would like to see what will happen in WoD and combined AH's.